Obrador signs the decree on the nationalization of lithium

President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorsigned a decree over the weekend on the nationalization of lithium and the handing over of all mineral reserves in the country to the Secretariat (Ministry) of Energy (Sener), in another step in his ambitious mineral exploitation plan.

Decree on the nationalization of lithium, which declare 234,855 hectares a reserve, It happened in the municipality of Bacadéhuachi, located in the state of Sonora, northwest of Mexico.

“We will nationalize lithium so that it cannot be exploited by foreigners, neither from Russia, nor from China, nor from the United States, oil and lithium belong to the nation, the people MexicoLópez Obrador said during the ceremony.

He pointed out that just as President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) recovered with the expropriation of oil, with the nationalization of oil on March 18, 1938, “what we are doing now, keeping the proportions, is the nationalization of lithium.”

Now, he said, comes the technological part. “Because here (in Sonora, Mexico) the lithium is in the clay, not in the rock, or in the brine, unlike in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina where this raw material exists and requires special treatment. Studies are coming to extract it, process it and separate it from the clay.”

He recalled that lithium is a “basic raw material” for the production of batteries for electric cars, among its several uses.

The regulation is another step taken by the Government after the reform of the Mining Act from April 2022, which declared lithium a mineral of public use, the exploitation of which will be the sole responsibility of the state through a new public company. Lithium for Mexico (LitioMX), which will depend on Sener.

The Mexican president signed the decree as part of a weekend tour of the state of Sonora, a state bordering Arizona in the United States, where the Government of Mexico intends to install a value chain for the production of electric vehicles and where it confirms the presence of the largest mineral deposit in the country and one of the largest in the the world.

Although initially there would only be public investment, the government has shown itself to be open to private resourcesespecially from its partners in the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC).

According to data from the Mexican government, the country ranks tenth out of 23 countries with the largest mineral reserves.

The site, located in the Mexican state of Sonora, in the northwest of the country, where LitioMx will also be locatedoperated by Sener, has proven and probable reserves of 243 million tons and an estimated production capacity of up to 17,500 tons per year.